The return of Professor Payne part 2
by supersalvarul
Summary: In the hospital for Melinda. Professor Payne runs into Delia, Ned, and a very happy Eli.


"She's going to be okay, boys." The nurse said over and over again. We both sat there motionless head in hands. It was now two forty am and we were the only ones in the waiting room.

"This is your fault." Jim yelled when the nurse left. His eyes looked red and puffy.

"No, Jim. It's not."

"We could have helped her, I could have caught her. It all could have been prevented." He was pacing

"Prevent her visions and you prevent who she is and obviously you have a problem with who she is."

"No. I have a problem with you. Every time you're around her something horrible happens to her. You tried to strangle my wife with a blanket after just showing up at our house at two in the morning; that's what I have a problem with."

"You need to let the visions happen, they'll help her in the long run. As for the thing with the blanket, that was a ghost that did it to her."

"I'm sick of hearing how it's always a ghost. You know what I think? I think that it isn't even a ghost that's been causing all of her stress for the past 29 years of her life; I think it's been you. You're the one that shows up and everything awful seems to happen. When you show up, Romano shows up. When you show up, Melinda almost dies and when you leave everything bad goes away." I laughed in my head; on the outside I was furious. Honestly he knew nothing about his own wife if he thought even for one moment that I could possibly be the one to cause all of this. I mean, I realize that I am a genius but I am not capable of something this big…I would never do something like that to Melinda.

I was about to speak my mind when Eli walked in.

"I came as soon as I could, oh Rick you're back this is great! Hi Jim!" The little peppy assistant of Melinda's walked in.

"God I hate hospitals," He whined, he was holding a bag of chips in one hand and water in the other as he looked around mysteriously. "All I can hear is stupid ghosts!" Jim and I rolled our eyes. I just really did not like Eli, he wasn't a bad guy and all but he was Melinda's new man and clearly not very smart or capable of the work I had done.

"So what happened to Melinda?" Eli asked, too curious for his own good. Jim and I tried to answer at the same time but he made eye contact with me and shot daggers into my eyes.

"She fell. It was Payne's fault." He roared.

"Payne causing pain? I highly doubt he'd be capable of that!" Eli laughed

"It wasn't my fault. Melinda had a vision, it made her fall to the ground and she hit her head, hard. I'm guessing this isn't your typical Poltergeist we got here. This is something way beyond the unnatural."

"Likely story." Jim said to me and turned to Eli "Right when I left the room I hear a loud bang, I come back and this idiot is standing over her while she had blood coming out of her head."

"Jim you are really getting on my nerves and being on my bad side is a really bad place to be trust me I may not look like I can get angry but believe me I can."

"Just because your wife died, doesn't mean you can take over mine." Jim snapped

"Uh…so anyone up for a coffee?" Eli asked, obviously uncomfortable.

"I'll get it myself." I said, and decided it would be best for me if I got up and walked rather than sit here and listen to Jim go on and on about stuff he doesn't even know.

I walked aimlessly through the hallway, fast paced trying to get away from the little hyper puppy dog and the macho pompous ass.

"Professor Payne?" A voice called from behind me.

"The one and only, how may I be of service to you today my dear?" I asked, before turning around to look at the face.

"You're back!" Delia, Melinda's close friend said. She was with her son, Ned who was 15 years old and worshiped Eli.

"Yup it's me, in the flesh, well of course because you can't see ghosts and if it wasn't me and I wasn't in the flesh then you'd look really crazy right now and I would look dead!" I laughed

"Um…yeah. So how is Melinda?"

"I would ask you the same thing, crazy part is I haven't been in to see her, I haven't exactly been allowed near her." I looked away.

"We're going to see her now, do you want to come?" That was the thing about Delia, she never asked questions. I don't know if it's a plus about her or a negative aspect…either way I was happy she didn't jump to conclusions like Jim did.

Delia didn't really believe in ghosts, she was like me when I was younger, she kept a close mind to things like that unable to fathom that there is a world that us humans without the gift cannot see. Ned, on the other hand, loved ghosts and the stories Melinda told he liked being around them, hence where he got the obsession with Jim.

We walked in to Melinda's room and all you could hear was nervous heart beats. Melinda was lying there with a bandage wrapped around the upper part of her head.

"Oh Melinda, what have you done this time?" Delia asked. This wasn't the first time we had all been called down to the hospital to wait for her to recover. Delia once was even in here herself from one of Melinda's ghost; the ghost tried to "short out" Delia from Ned's old turn table and electrocute her.

"She'll pull through, she always does." Ned said.

"You were there when it happened, weren't you?" Delia asked

"Yep she had a…a…." I hated talking about this kind of stuff with Delia

"A vision?" Ned asked, suddenly excited and almost as energetic as Eli had been.

"Ding Ding Ding! You're a smart one, you must have learned from me."

"Oh. Oh! OH! Is Eli here yet? I want to ask him about this one!" He asked

"Eli is just a puppy, not fully trained yet. Why don't you ask me, the dog; the master of the tricks of the trade." I laughed but Delia was already being pulled out of the room by Ned.

"Mel, you'll pull through. Listen to the kid he's got brains even if he'd rather ask the puppy over the dog like me. He'll learn, you can't teach new puppy old tricks." I patted her hand before leaving.


End file.
